New update - Finally-Plus Test Pilot skins.

[blackwiggle]

Finally a update of sorts, read below.
Also those on the Test Piot Program should check their email box to see if they have recieved their unique Test Pilot Program craft skin [I got mine out of the Blue this morning] which also alerted me to the probable update.
Sadly NO PS4 post just yet

Update 1.3.186 Released
19 September - GotSomePills
Dear Pilots

After winning a long battle with an internal bug from an Unreal upgrade, we are pleased to announce that our promised technical update is now out. See our Steam Forum for full patch notes. Bugs fixed, some features added, fps gains all over.

Dates
Since our last post in January, R8 Games has secured finishing funds and has been hard at work developing and porting to console. No dates yet, but as it stands right now we’re looking at a new Steam “edition" and simultaneous console launch (PS4/XB1) before the middle of 2019. Yes, we know, we said 2018. We were wrong and we apologize for the further delay. The funds sunk into Formula Fusion since late 2015 have exceeded what preceded them many times over but we’re still a very small indie developer with often less than 6 people working on the game at any one time.

While we know it might look like a proverbial Marie Celeste from the outside, the engines have always been running and they’re screaming full throttle right now. We have no intention of leaving this ship. Please don’t take our lack of communication as a sign that we don’t appreciate your support and patience. We just have our heads down making the best possible game we can for you.

What’s to come
Before mid 2019 our current plans are to release an “edition” on Steam with a simultaneous launch on PS4 and XB1. All existing Formula Fusion owners will get this new game for free.

The game will contain all the tracks and craft that Formula Fusion currently has plus a whole bunch more:

New tracks,
New UI (including tDR icons and graphics),
New race modes,
New AI,
New Career Mode,
New interactive Tutorial
New weapons, targeting system and FX
New mix of licensed music old and new, hardcore and chill.
New smoother Multiplayer on hosted servers with leaderboards for Time
Trials and Ranked Races

The game as it always should have been.

Thanks again for your support and patience, there will be more news to come in the future.
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Update 1.3.186 Patch Notes
Good Evening/Morning/Afternoon Pilots!

We're pleased to announce that the Formula Fusion update 1.3.186 is now live! We'd like to thank all members of the community for supporting Formula Fusion along its journey.

If you find any bugs or have any issues, please post them below.

Patch 1.3.186

New Stuff:

Formula Fusion now runs on version 4.18 of the Unreal Engine.
Music Tracks now stream in from disk instead of being loaded into memory to improve loading times.
Videos now stream in from disk instead of being loaded into memory to improve loading times.
Changed the way craft skins are loaded into memory to improve loading times.
Improved initial loading time of the game entering the splash screen.
Added a new layer of data checking when loading save data to prevent players using modified save data files for skins.
Added community discord link in the main menu.
Added support for bots in multiplayer races.
New billboards around tracks.
Hitting a kill volume or travelling too far away from the track no longer kills the player, instead it resets you back to the track.
New weapon modifier cards:
Mine - Hollow Charge.
Gauss Cannon - Lead Slug.
Energy Bolt - Heavy Payload.
New Achievements:
Hat Trick - Win 3 races in a row.
Just Getting Started - Earn 5k Tech Credits.
Bringing Home the Bread - Earn 20k Tech Credits.
Breaking the Bank - Earn 50k Tech Credits.
Locked On - Successfully fire and hit 100 Energy Bolts.
Electric Avenue - Discharge 200 shockwaves.
Predator - Spend 10 minutes cloaked.
Peashooter - Successfully fire and hit 1000 Gauss Cannon rounds.
Sonic Boom - Reach 1260kmh.
Marathon Runner - Complete 50 (or more) laps in a single race.
4 new music tracks added as the TonaZ Pack.
6 new skin additions for the Vixen.
8 new skin additions for the Sabre.
11 new skin additions for the Python.
15 new skin additions for the Dragon.
12 new skin additions for the Voxel.
New light strip skin additions for each craft which contain multiple colour variants.


Changes:

Player Names in multiplayer now move and scale much smoother.
Map Vote now displays track still images instead of videos if video playback is disabled.
All videos are now h.264 and cheaper in performance.
Improved Video Billboard performance in all tracks.
Music Selection menu now displays full track names properly instead of clipping the text.
Performance optimizations in Midtown Trafik.
Performance optimizations in Niagara.
Performance optimizations in Fiyah! Fury.
Performance optimizations in El Muro.
Performance optimizations in Freeway
Lighting changes to Midtown Trafik.
Lighting changes to El Muro.
Lighting changes to Atlas Torres.
Lighting changes to Niagara.
Removed skin specific stats from the player stats menu.
Damage stats no longer show an absurdly long decimal value.
Starting a race with less than 10 players will now start you closer to the start line leaving empty starting positions at the back of the grid rather than at the front.
Improved loading times of the Main Menu.
Improved loading times of the lobby.
Tweaked volume on some UI sounds to not be as loud.
Lobby settings now remember previous track and variant selections.


Bug Fixes:

Fixed a bug which caused the splash screen to hang on a black screen when hammering input to skip it.
Fixed a bug which caused the save loadout screen to not let you save a loadout if you cancelled saving one previously.
Fixed a bug which caused the antler skin to not fade out with the cloak.
Fixed a bug which prevented earned tech credits being added to the players wallet correctly when restarting an event in the results screen.
Fixed a bug which caused the Tech Credits display to not display the correct number after making any purchase.
Fixed an issue that prevented WASD input from working in the garage section of the main menu.
Fixed a lot of issues that caused input inconsistency in various sections of the main menu.
Fixed an issue that caused Time Trial to not update stat progress for the distance achievements.
Fixed an issue which caused the splash screen to have a black screen when playing on N versions of windows operating systems.
Fixed an issue that caused Time Trial to not set leaderboard entries properly.
Fixed a couple of issues that caused the main menu navigation bar from displaying the correct path.
Fixed a couple of issues that caused the main menu input bar from displaying the correct options.
Fixed an issue that caused the loading screen to fade out twice when returning to the lobby after a race as a client.
Fixed an issue that caused clients to briefly appear below the garage when initially joining a lobby.
Fixed an issue that caused lobbies to display the christmas tree at all times.
Fixed an issue that allowed legacy weapons to still be used from ancient save data files that should no longer have been accessible in the game.
Fixed an issue that caused the lobby player grid to not replace a player with "Free racer slot" when a player disconnected from the lobby.
Fixed a bug that sometimes caused multiplayer races to get stuck on the starting grid when players disconnected during the loading sequence.
Fixed a bug which caused the second weapon card in each slot to be removed if equipping 2 of the same card in a loadout.


Known Issues:

disabling billboards via settings in a race requires a level travel to activate.
Main Menu->Records->Leaderboards->ShowFriends always says "loading" and never populates the UI with your friends leaderboard entries.
slight stutter when first navigating the team select menu in the campaign.
rare crash when navigating the tutorial section of the main menu.
incredibly rare crash when changing map, possibly related to turning on and off billboards.
If you die in a race and respawn, activating the cloak will not display the purple outline.
Playing the game on an outdated version of windows 10 can result in a green flickering when playing in fullscreen.
Attempting to play old replay files may cause the game to crash.


Join us on the Formula Fusion Discord server [discord.gg]

[eLhabib]

I joined the Test Pilot Programme in 2014 and backed the game on KS in 2015. Communication by the devs has been horrible, everything they delivered so far is underwhelming, and from what I understand most of the original team working on the game have left the project. I have zero faith in this eventually turning out to be a finished, polished product. Shame, really.

[blackwiggle]

I don't know what we will end up with in the end TBH, as basically the updates have been so few and far between [2 in 12 months, and both relatively minor at that], and commenting on them seems pointless to be honest, since as you say there is a severe lack of communication.
They seem to be going off and doing their own thing regardless of past feedback.
The Test Pilot forum, even when it was still up and running, seemed to have little interaction between the testers and the developers, so people stopped posting and it ended up a graveyard.

I mean when you look at the size of the team building it [6 or 7 people], and the change of those personnel over the last 4 years, is it really a surprise that they seem more intent on working on the game than talking about it?
They had every intention of keeping people in the loop, but obviously that intention went the way of the Dodo, or the person charged with looking after it left.....even their Farcebook page han't been updated since around Jan.

One thing has become obvious, it is NOT a Wipeout clone.......far from it.
It has the potential to be something much bigger, and much more involved.........but this is the big question, has working on all this available craft/weapon/handling/race types/day-night versions of tracks etc alteration been worth it?
Has it ? or will it be seen as ?, a waste of time building it, in the long run if people end up thinking, stuff it I just want to race, this is too involved for me.

That's my fear.
I don't fear that it won't end up a polished product, I doubt they would persist with it if they were in the situation where they though they couldn't produce that, especially since they now have publishers money behind them.

My fear is people might be disinterested once it's released....that would be the real shame.

[Lion]

Due to a quirk in the way I bought my TPP, I have a second code for that skin.
Did anyone here jump on board later and want a TPP skin code?

[blackwiggle]

What a huge disappointment that skin is.
You would have thought after all the patience shown, and having to deal with all the stuff up's along the way, that they would have come up with something a LOT better than a Two drab burnt Orange stripes down each side of the craft.

[Lion]

I had to visit each skin multiple times to differentiate the TPP and Kickstarter skins (different colour stripes)
On most ships I don't see why you'd use anything other than the tDR skin with pink exhausts

[mikee74]

The Ai is only in the the Midtown good all others Tracks is the Ai to slowly.